


Never Forgive Me

by curseofgrima



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Angst, Gen, Spoilers, fire emblem birthright spoilers, gender neutral corrin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 02:30:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7295911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curseofgrima/pseuds/curseofgrima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaze had always been full of regret knowing he might have been able to keep Corrin from being taken by King Garon as a child. If he had been smarter, faster, more vigilant, Corrin would have had a happy childhood, and Queen Mikoto would still have her glowing smile. A ninja must repair his mistakes...even if it costs him everything he treasures to do so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to a good friend on FE:RP Twitter: Manny.

“Do you know what you have caused?!”

A slap so loud his ears rang, instant regret and realization following. His father’s voice harshly scolded his brother for showing surprise plain as day on his face at the sudden action. Kaze did not move, did not even touch the burning mark forming on his cheek. His world was fading into silence as his father looked down upon him sternly, the scowl on his face deepening.

“Ninja are never to reveal their true emotions,” he repeated the mantra. “At least you always seemed to have that one skill in your favor, Kaze.” He scratched at his chin, his arms and face littered with scars from years of missions. It was an intimidating patch work of healed injuries and markings Kaze might one day see on his own body.

Keeping his eyes downcast, Kaze only nodded in obedient silence once he was dismissed. It was as if he had been slapped a second time when he glanced up only to see his father’s back turned to him. He was so enraged that he could not even bare to look at his own son’s face. Distraught, Kaze raced out of the room at full-speed, not caring about his brother’s gaze as he passed him by in the doorway. What did Saizo know, anyway? He was the favorite child, the one everyone had such high hopes and expectations for. Meanwhile, where did that leave him? A reflection? A double? A possible replacement someday if something were to happen to his brother?

He shook the condemning thoughts from his head as he approached the forest. Branches snapped beneath his feet, leaves slowly drifting to the ground around his broken path. He couldn’t stop the tears pooling in his eyes no matter how many times he roughly brushed them away with his arms. No one needed him, not when he was such a failure. A leftover. An unnecessary twin to the next head of the clan. His father spent days training and talking with his brother, who received all of his hopes and expectations, but barely spoke a word to him. Kaze’s only duty was to become a well-rounded ninja and not to bring shame to his family’s name.

Of course, he had failed at both tasks. If only he had spoken up about the Nohrian army’s presence so close to the capital. He should have known what it meant—it was his duty to watch and understand his surroundings! Now, because of him, Hoshido had lost one of their royal family members—Queen Mikoto’s child, Corrin. Reports of her devastation poured in from the capital, explaining her dark days spent locked away in her private rooms grieving over her child’s capture. It was not yet known if the child was dead or alive, but they would surely be used as a tool if they had managed to survive.

_Stupid! Stupid! _Kaze knocked his fists against his head, mentally screaming at himself. One mistake cost him so much, just as his father had always warned him, and this was the biggest one he could make. He pushed away a patch of bushes and vines blocking the entrance to an ancient tree split by lightning and hid himself inside its trunk. It was his special place known only to him where he could go when he was feeling at his lowest. Laying down on the cold ground, he curled into a ball and held his knees close to his chest as he cried. What had he done?__

What had he set into motion?

 

Meeting Queen Mikoto was one of the hardest things he had done in his life. The hardest was having to kill a man for the first time. On that day, he had been praised by his father for being able to keep his face a blank slate throughout the entire incident. To the other ninja, it both impressed and disturbed them—usually such an inexperienced ninja showed at least some regret. Even Saizo had felt slight guilt at the dawning realization of what he had committed, but to Kaze, guilt was an emotion he was used to. He had already promised to himself on that moonlit-night in the forest that he would do anything to get Corrin back from the Nohrians, and surely he would have to kill to save them, too.

At least he was able to scrape up some approval from the elders after that moment, but there was no hope of any positive outcome when dealing with the queen. It was impossible for her to forgive him after the grief he had inadvertently caused her, but the moment he saw her saintly, white gown, he fell to his knees in the deepest bow he could manage.

“I could never ask you to forgive me for my pathetic failure as a ninja, my queen! It was because of my negligence that your child was taken. My presence before you must feel like a curse, but I only wanted to offer my sincerest apologies for what I had failed to do, and to give myself up for any punishment you see fit.”

_I am going to die, _Kaze thought to himself as he spoke. The consequences of his mistake could be considered a capital crime since it involved the capture of royalty. Perhaps…even the death of King Sumeragi.__

Instead of shouting, beating, or hurling punishments at him, however, the queen quietly knelt in front of him and placed a gentle hand on his head. Surprised, but keeping his face pressed against the floor, he clenched his hands into fists. Her voice was soft and forgiving as she spoke. “You are very young. It is only natural that you are inexperienced, and that you were even more so in the past when the event occurred. What happened was not your fault, and I do not blame you for it,” she ran her fingers through his hair with a motherly touch he had never known in his own childhood. “Even if you had understood what you had seen, the same tragedies could have occurred in the end. You do not need to carry such weight on your shoulders all of your life.”

Biting back tears until his lip bled, Kaze kept his forehead against the floor, his voice breaking only slightly beneath the pressure in his throat. “Thank you for your forgiveness. One such as I does not deserve such kindness.”

Queen Mikoto denied his statement, but deep inside of himself a voice told him she was only showing mercy. No matter how many times she could say that she forgave him, it would never bring her child back. The tinge of sadness in her eyes even as she smiled stayed with him, never leaving his thoughts, and struck his heart with violent force when he finally saw the face of her offspring years later.

“Corrin,” he had whispered below his breath in that moment, a fleeting name no one else had heard during the panic surrounding him. He and Rinkah had almost been killed by the Nohrian royals, but the thought of Corrin’s red eyes could not be shaken from his mind. It was them, the person he had been searching for, for so long! They were alive and healthy. He could take them back home to their mother and see her joyful smile at their return!

But, unfortunately, the loving scene he had imagined of a mother and child reunited never came. Corrin was confused, skeptical, and had no memory of their real family. It pained him all the more knowing his failures had caused a rift between another parent and child, one that was never mended before the queen’s sudden death. So many mistakes, so many things he could never take back. He was a poor excuse for a ninja. Longing looks at Saizo proudly serving Prince Ryoma only made his stomach twist more knowing he never had a master to call his own. At least, not until the very end.

It was an easy choice to give up his life for Corrin’s.


	2. Shatter

Kaze had always been weak—from the time he was a child until the moment disaster struck. There was no hope of Corrin ever forgiving him for failing to preform his duty as a ninja. How could they ever? A failure like him? The person who should have known what was happening when they were taken, whose fault it was that the years they should have spent with their mother were snatched away. Worthless, pathetic, eternally second best to his brother in everyone’s eyes…except, just maybe, in Corrin’s. Amazingly, they called him a friend, but that was only because they did not know the truth of his cowardice. If they did, they would surely loath him.

The months after Corrin had reunited with their birth family in Hoshido had been both incredibly harsh and unbelievably sweet. It had become easier to soothe the pricks of self-hatred stabbing his heart after he had married and started a family of his own. How happy he was when he had been able to hold his little daughter Midori for the first time and look into her green eyes reflecting his own. Such a little thing she was. He had taken her out beneath the moonlight where they could be alone and cried silent tears of joy. A child of his own, a treasure just for him. There was no one else he would put above his wife and daughter—no one.

Except for Corrin.

Those red eyes could see through him every time, not as a vassal, but as a human being. Corrin told him he was great, that it was no wonder he was so loved by women. Kaze did not understand how he could enjoy the company of a humble ninja such as himself, but he cared for them all the same because of it. He would do anything for Corrin. He would walk a hundred miles, destroy any enemy, clear any path, climb any mountain.

He would _die _for them.__

__

__Death. It was supposed to be so frightening, but he had seen death so many times in his nightmares and whispering softly from the depths of his waking mind as a child that he was numb to its cold fingers pulling him downwards. He stared straight into the crevasse with only a small stirring of anxiety in his chest. A ninja had to learn from an early age to cast away any self-preservation if it was for the sake of his master’s life. He had to quickly do what must be done before the building fear inside of him grew stronger._ _

__The quivering hand gripped so tightly in his own was the last sensation he focused on before throwing Corrin into the air. He fell fast, looking up at Hinoka’s pegasus as she swiftly caught Corrin in mid-air. He sighed with relief. Though he had never sworn an oath, they would always be his master, and they had plenty of allies beside them who would be sure to protect them in his stead. It was unfortunate that he could not do his duty until the end, when he would be able to see the first sunrise of a peaceful world._ _

__Midori’s soft laughter echoed through his thoughts, and he remembered his sweet wife’s smile on their wedding day. Maybe he had seen the first glimpses of real peace, after all. He had been so blessed to have met everyone, and maybe with this sacrifice he could finally forgive himself for his mistakes._ _

__“Midori…” He whispered, the wind blowing his words upwards as he fell. The image of his daughter’s bright smile beneath the moonlight appeared in his mind. Smiling at the memory, he bit his trembling lip. “I suppose I have failed as a father, haven’t I?”_ _

__There was a thud, and the world shattered into complete darkness._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a short angst fic that I may or may not add another chapter to. For now, it will probably remain complete until I decide whether or not to add a final chapter depicting Corrin's reaction.


End file.
